The Aperture closes: Apple ends development of its Lightroom competitor

There's big news today out of Cupertino, CA as Apple pulls the plug on two of its longest-running imaging apps. Just shy of its tenth birthday, Apple's flagship product aimed at enthusiasts and pros -- Apple Aperture -- will be developed no more. Nor will iPhoto, its consumer app included on every Mac OS machine sold since 2002, whose role has been subsumed by the new Photos app in iOS 8.

First released in 2005, just three years after iPhoto, Aperture actually beat Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom to market. That makes it the first mainstream image editing and organization app aimed specifically at enthusiast and professional photographers. Over the last decade, though, Aperture has fallen behind its rivals in terms of popularity and development. The writing was perhaps already on the wall, as the app hasn't received any updates since 2013.

Apple's Aperture, shown above, will be developed no more.

Apple news site The Loop today made it official, though, with an article confirming that both Aperture and iPhoto are no longer in development. (The story has since been independently confirmed by The Verge.) Speaking to The Loop, an Apple representative suggested that the company's new Photos app -- coming to iOS 8 later this year, and OS X Yosemite early next year -- serves as a replacement for both, but that will come as little comfort to anyone still using Aperture. The Photos app in OS X so far looks to be more of a replacement for iPhoto, though, than it does for an enthusiast-grade photography app.

Are you still using Apple Aperture? If so, what's your next move -- stick with Apple's discontinued app for as long as you can, or make the leap to a rival ASAP? And if the latter, where will you go -- to Adobe Lightroom, Phase One's Capture One, or to another app entirely? Discuss in the comments below!

Apple considers its new Photos app for OS X and iOS 8 to be Aperture's replacement.